Shadow Dreams
by CrystalPhoenixFlames
Summary: P3: He didn’t remember when the dreams started appearing; they first came in pieces, “like shards of a broken mirror” Shinjiro remembered having described to his mother. He was alone in this world, an enigma, until he met the leader of the archery team...


Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 3.

Warnings (kinda): No pairings (Yukari is NOT in this story), a little cussing… blah, I think that's it. Oh, and they're stuck in another world so I believe AU is the right term for it? Hehe, haven't used that acronym before.

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He didn't remember when the dreams started appearing; it must have been around middle school. They first came in pieces, "like shards of a broken mirror" Shinjiro remembered having described to his mother. There were green skies and streets filled with blood and upright glowing steel coffins housing living people. Shadows began moving around on their own, growing bright yellow eyes to guide the way. At that point, his mom stopped letting him watch T.V., convinced that cartoons were giving him too many ideas. But, Shinjiro liked science documentaries back then. Back then of course…

Despite all her efforts, the dreams her son told her about continued. The green skies eventually gave rise to foreboding huge yellow moons, and the moving shadows began pulling the people out of the coffins to eat their brains. Okay, he exaggerated, but he didn't know how to describe it any other way at the time. They really didn't affect his normal life too much since they were as far from normal as strange can be. Until he started dreaming about this silver haired kid and his little sister, that is. It took him several months to finally put a name to the two: Akihiko and Miki Sanada. He used to call the guy Aki. That day he cussed for the first time in his life. "Shit, I'm going crazy," he remembered saying when he woke up from that particular dream. In less than a year, his suspicion and concern of his dreams' similarities finally led to the fear that he was "losing it."

After that, he started acting differently from the Shinjiro everyone knew, to the horror of his parents and one or two friends. Normal Shinjiro was a quiet academic, a perfect target for some of the older not-so-bright students. Everyone lost their voices for a moment when they saw their timid classmate single-handedly beat up three older students who were bullying him during lunch. When asked by the principle where he had learned such "bestial" movements, he shrugged and replied, "I guess I just had it in me all this time." It really did scare him, how it felt primal, like it was a part of his personality that had finally overcame the gentle side, smoldering his former self until it suffocated and died.

Shinjiro began checking his movements to make sure that he didn't stray too far from the school laws. He didn't want to become like the one he saw in his dreams, hanging out at back alleys alone at night and cutting classes, but it was a little hard to not beat the crap out of someone who annoyed him. He reserved enough self-control to stop telling his mother about the dreams and managed to train his mind to answer to his "real" name instead of Aragaki, but the dreams kept on coming and they only became more real.

However, the now widely proclaimed school punk really did try, every now and then, to ignore his dreams, but he found that he couldn't. He couldn't shake off the idea that his best friend was a non-existent head of the non-existent boxing club. He couldn't forget that feeling of loss, although the thing he lost never existed in this world. Right when he couldn't take it anymore, elementary school was over, and his family had moved to a new location, so high school was a new place with new faces that didn't know about his strangeness. However, he found out one thing that was strange: the person in his dreams had killed some kid's mother once and allowed himself to die because of it. The Shinjiro now did not feel any regret. Perhaps it was fate.

He felt calmer after that realization that there was no way he could have killed someone with his own hands, in this world at least, and the dreams didn't happen as often anymore. So, the first two years of high school passed without much incident except that Shinjiro was still somewhat of a loner, although he wasn't seen as threatening, most of the time. On the third year, word went around that there was a transfer student, which was rare for their school. When Shinjiro finally got a good look at him, a protégée who had became the head of the archery club within three weeks, the remaining memories just suddenly exploded into him. One club, ten people, ten guns, twelve giant shadows…

Then, he remembered his dying words: "This is how it should be…"

"This is definitely not how it should be! What the hell is he doing here?" Shinjiro asked himself. "I should be the only one who's dead!"

However, although he showed no signs of it, Shinjiro was overjoyed when he saw that familiar face. He tried everything he could to see if this person was really the same Minato Arisato in his dreams, the leader of SEES. He scanned daily for any signs of discomfort or any glances of recognition. There were none. Desperate, Shinjiro finally joined the archery club in order to get closer to this enigma who was supposedly, supposed to be, suffering from the same "disease" he was plagued by these past ten years. Yet, he found nothing. Minato welcomed him into the team like he would to any other team member.

One day after everyone had left archery practice, Shinjiro couldn't take it anymore. He walked up his captain and threw him against the wall violently, lifting him slightly off the ground. Minato winced as his pain receptors registered the damage done to his back and head along with a slight ringing in his ears.

"Stop giving me this shit! You remember, don't you? The full moon, the blood on the walls, the guns, the monsters…" he yelled, allowing all the pent up emotion inside of him to break free and flood the room. He felt hysterical; this isn't fair. Why did he have to be the only one?

"Shadows," Minato corrected him calmly, snapping Shinjiro out of his momentary loss of self-control.

The other froze. So this kid really did remember; Shinjiro was no longer alone in this strange world, no longer the only one who didn't belong. He felt all the anger dissipate, and it left him with emptiness. Yet, a strange sense of satisfaction also accompanied the uncomfortable sensation of suddenly losing one's reason for anger. "Yeah… Shadows…" he muttered, slowing letting go of the younger boy and letting Minato catch his breath.

The archery club leader straightened out his uniform and collected his equipment from the ground. "Do you want to talk on the roof? It's probably quieter there," he said, pointing upward.

"Tch… you haven't changed one bit," he said, smiling. "Calm as always…"

"I wasn't sure if you remembered so I didn't want to try anything."

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"So why archery?" The view from the rooftop was peaceful like the one at Gekkoukan, not that Shinjiro went up to the rooftop that often since he rarely came to school. However, he did remember a little of how Gekkoukan was like from the one or two times he went up to the roof with Akihiko.

"It reminds me of her…" Minato replied with a faraway look in his eyes.

Shinjiro sighed. "You're chasing a hopeless dream, man."

"Perhaps…" The archery club leader snapped out of his thoughts. "Aren't you also pursuing this dream? If you weren't, you wouldn't have found me."

This made the other laugh, although neither of them really found it all that funny. "Shit, you got me." He turned his gaze towards the horizon, away from Minato. "I guess we're both idiots."

Minato looked towards the setting sun, envying its beautiful painting-like atmosphere. "Someday… we'll see them all again, for sure," he said, a familiar determination tracing his words.

Shinjiro smiled. "Whatever…"

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Note: Must… finish… the game… with all social links maxed out, persona compendium completed, requests finished, level 99… before school starts! (I'm dreaming…and yeah, I'm slow when it comes to games. Did something wrong and restarted…)

I'm not one hundred percent happy with this… might rewrite parts of it later… eventually… or never… I don't know… Thanks for reading though!


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